GigaBit Switches and the Xbox (with XBMC for Xbox)?

[nrs250]

I just though I would post my experiences with the D-Link 2208 Gigabit switch, a D-link DNS-323 NAS Box and X-BOX Media Center rev13851.

I was streaming using a NetGear Powerline AV Ethernet Kit.

It appears that the auto-sensing feature of the gigabit switch is not playing well with the XBMC. When set to Auto Sense or GB speeds ISO files experience stutters. I have checked out various settings for cache including: None, 1000, 2048 (default) and even 6K and 8K. None made a difference with drops. I also tried toggling the AUTO-RESUME from DVD stop and "skip" features to main menu items in the settings menu.

I checked out the file transfer details and the vq setting shows 10-45% when the autosense is enabled.

When I set the 100BaseT setting on the gigabit switch I get 80-100% reading vq setting and frame drops stop.

It is apparent that some gigabit switches may have difficult negotiating speeds with the XBMC and in my case I needed to throttle back the switch to stop frame drops. I don't have a setting for per-port throttling or speed settings on this router (that would be the ideal solution). When I need to transfer files to my NAS box from my PC I temporarily change the switch back to gigabit speeds, do the transfer and then switch back to 100BaseT for the XBMC. This is not ideal but it is the only method I have found to eliminate frame drops when playing ISO files.

;)

[kraqh3d]

do a search. there was another user who was having similar problems and if im not mistaken, they fixed it by updating the firmware on their d-link.

[nrs250]

This is the latest firmware.

[kraqh3d]

you shouldn't have to change anything. autoneg is a mandatory part of the of 1000Base-T spec. one thing which would cause a problem is if you have the xbox actually configured for 100/full duplex, not auto. this would cause the switch side to default into 100/half duplex mode which kills network throughput. is there anyway for you to check this?

[nrs250]

I believe this post (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33985&highlight=full+duplex) is similar.

[nrs250]

QUOTE:

"xbox actually configured for 100/full duplex, not auto. this would cause the switch side to default into 100/half duplex mode which kills network throughput."

How do you "configure" the xbox NIC. I did not see any setting in xbmc to do this. There was none in the "native" xbox dashboard either.

[Scott R]

I'd be interested in hearing some solutions on this as well. I'm experiencing significant stuttering issues with a Linksys powerline (200mbps) adaptor. My source is a Belkin N+ wireless router with my 1TB hooked directly to it via USB. The Belkin N+ has gigabit ethernet ports. With wired ethernet, it works fine, but my powerline adaptor (with a strong signal) has a lot of stuttering streaming ISO DVD rips, so I'm wondering if the gigabit ethernet may be causing issues.

[KaoticOrder]

This is probably going to seem a little redundant and unhelpful, but I have to assume that you don't know the 100baseT or the 1000baseT spec by heart (nor am I claiming that I do, either!) in order to start making helpful suggestions. Gigabit Ethernet requires Cat5E cabling instead of the standard Cat5 cabling... Also, I think that most routers drop down the total speeds for any slower client (i.e. if you have 3 computers connected to a switch and all are using gigabit ethernet, then you connect the xbox, the connection drops down to 100baseT to match the max for the xbox). I could be wrong about that last part, though. That being said, even 10bT should have no problems streaming any size video to your xbox unless you are encoding HD at real-time across the network (requires fibre channel to work well; another discussion entirely, and not at all applicable to an XBMC installation).